- Name:
Lawrence Browning
- Mailing address:
Plantation, Fl
- When and where were you born?
9/1923 Morristown NJ
- When did you come to Mountain Lakes?
1927 or 1928.
- Did your parents also live here?
We moved from Boonton as a family including Grandmother Howell.
- In which houses?
The NE corner of Boulevard & N Glen Rd. 107 Blvd?
- What do you remember particularly about the houses and properties where you lived?
Our house was on a big corner lot with the main street [the Boulevard] in front, N Glen Road on the west & a little spring fed brook along part of the north separating us from the McGreevy’s & all the rest vacant woods to the north, east & west across the street.
Our Browning grandparents & youngest daughter, aunt Kitten, lived a short distance west past the lake on the south side of the Boulevard. Our house was on the top of a knoll with a large roofed porch full length along the front facing south overlooking the Boulevard with glimpses of the lake beyond. The driveway curved up from N. Glen Road to a big circle in front with a huge centered walnut tree, then continued to the rear 2 car garage. It had an entry foyer with stairs up & hall to Dining rm.with closets a big living room with fireplace, a music rm, a large dining room, kitchen & pantry with a clothes chute we were able to illegally use to go up or down between 1st & 2nd floors. The 2nd floor had 4 BR’s, 3 B. The third floor was narrow with a helps bedroom/bath & big long room that Dad used to set up our elaborate Lionel electric Train.We had many dormer windows because it was a gambrel roof , sloping from the ridge down to the porch roof level.
- What are some of your special memories growing up in Mountain Lakes?
Before the 1929 market crash my brother Dick & I were given a canoe which we kept beside the Little Lake & a lionel train laid out in the attic. These occupied much of out time & were a great joy. Both were sold together for $35 in the depression winter of 1934 when we left for Ft. Lauderdale. A few times I paddled the canoe through the Little Lake & the connecting canal to school on the Big Lake where I made a big impression on the girls. Dick [2 years older], became such a skillful fisherman that I gave it up & became his skipper. Pirch, sunfish, pickrel & bass were plentiful in the Little Lake, but most were small. Once Dick caught a whopper 5 pound bass & put it alive in a little pool of our neighbors, the Hichcoks. Dad notified his brother-in-law Charles Saleck who arranged to get Dick photographed with the bass & a Sears Roebuck rod , then had it published in the Sears catalog. I have o copy of the photo & will try to send it & some others to you.
Dick trapped muskrats on the Little Lake which he skinned, cured & I think sold. Our wonderful childhood in Mountain Lakes set the stage for for our future lives in Florida as Dick became a lifelong hunter & fisherman & I became a lifelong sailor.
- Are there any special stories you associate with that time of your life?
In our early days at Mountain Lakes our uncle Miles landed a Navy anphibion on the Big Lake & taxied onto the club beach where a crowd watched as he greeted his family & lifted Dick & me into The pilot seats. My cousin, Joan [Browning] Dubois, has a blurry black & white movie of the event.My Grandfather Browning & 3 sons, Arnie, Barney [Dad], & Alan,all lived in Mountain Lakes & commuted to Wall Street where they had a brokerage firm. After the market crashed in 1929 they refused to come home & seemed wild to Mother on the phone. so after 2 days she drove to NYC & dragged Barney home.
In marble season, Dick & I once were nearly cleaned out playing “keeps” with bigger kids so Dad got Arnie & Alan to join a game & quickly cleaned out the bullies.
Dick, Pat Orgain & I were allowed to hang out in the fire station by Art & spent many happy days there. The depression caused Pat’s father to disallow the use of his electric toy soldier moulding machine so Art allowed us to use it at the fire station.
Dick & I became so farmiliar with all the paths & trails at the Tourne & the surrounding woods that I remember them clearly now & could find them if they still exist.
- Where did you and your fami1ly shop?
Mostly in Boonton, occasionally in Morristown.
- What were the roads and the lakes like?
- Formal recreation, sports and entertainment in general?
- Are there any special events that stand out in your mind?
- Learning to swim & dive at Wildwood Beach on the Little Lake & the grand closing picnic on Labor Day with the contest to come ashore with the floating watermelon.
- Delivering ten cent Liberty magazines to my 10 loyal customers all over town & spending some of the fifty cent profit at the little drug store near the station. They were delivered at night to my parents by a Princeton student
- Waiting for the firemen to test the ice & start the siren for the OK to skate.
- My great & lasting love for Grace Wright.
- How did commuting change over your time here?
From 1928 to 1934 Dad always went to Wall Street by the train.
- How did various laws affect the way people lived in its lifestyle, its homes, as a community? ???
- How did world events — World War I, the Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the assassination of JFK, Viet Nam, Watergate, etc. — affect you and fellow Mountain Lakes residents when you were growing up?
In 1944 I was an Army Air Corps pilot waiting on the Boulevard for the bus back to Newark to fly back to my base, when I was sure I spotted Art the fireman directing schoolchildren. Before I could greet him, the bus came & I still reget missing that reunion with such a marvelous friend & role model.
- What made living in Mountain Lakes special to you, as you think back over your life here?
It was the perfect place for young boys to live, roam free through town, woods & lakes. A place of enchantment I will love & remember forever.
FOOTNOTE:
My fraternal grandparents {Oren Browning} & family moved to “D” house on the Boulevard during World War1. It was always identified as “D” house by our family. My maternal grandparenrts [Monroe Howell] & family lived in Boonton Park where they had Mr. Hapgood as a guest some of the time that he was developing Mountain Lakes and he named Howell Road for my grandfather. Grandfather Howell bought, leased or created ponds near Mountain Lakes & Boonton where he had ice cut, stored in cork insulated sheds, then shipped by trainloads to New York City in the summer. Some of the nearby ponds were called Howell Ponds. He also was a founder of the Boonton Bank and his son John became the life-long vice president after World War 1.